Vegans and the Replicator

[horatio83]

And your point is besides saying that the Canadians are evil whereas this company is good? Climate change is not a morality game.

I don't know why this company is increasing their forest capacities but it is not out of benevolence. Once fire wood demand increases further they have an incentive to cut down their forests. In theory you'd need a worldwide subsidy system for maintaining forests.

 

[Paradon]

Actually, I heard cutting down the forests is good if you do it correctly and not cut it down all at the same time. That's what my zoology teacher told me.

 

[T'Girl]

I don't know why this company is increasing their forest capacities but it is not out of benevolence.

Regardless of their motivations, the effect of their actions is a general increase of forest lands. You mentioned "maintaining forests," I pointed out that someone is going beyond maintaining.

Once fire wood demand increases further they have an incentive to cut down their forests.

The company I referred to will be cutting down their forest in time, trees are a crop just like grain or strawberries. And after they cut them down, they will plant new ones.

Horatio83, while older trees store more carbon, younger trees absorb more carbon. Weyerhaeuser's (non-altruistic) actions of repeatedly cutting and planting is removing carbon from the atmosphere. The company isn't in the firewood business (I'm sure some gets burned), they're a lumber company, houses and other buildings that are built of wood are repositories of collected carbon. The only way that carbon will be immediately released is if the house burns down.

If Weyerhaeuser simply allowed the forest to remain untouched, the process of carbon removal would slow as the trees reached maturity. But the immature trees (again) "suck up" more carbon than their elders.

In theory you'd need a worldwide subsidy system for maintaining forests.

No, you need private "sustainable forest management." It sounds like you're advocating using tax money to do what private industry can do better, and provide thousands of jobs, and make a nice profit in the process.

<OO>

 

[horatio83]

What I am advocating is to apply the lessons from economics 101. CO2 emissions constitute a negative externality so you tax it to internalize it, building/maintaining forests constitutes a positive externality so you subsidize it to internalize it. Of course the problem is more complicated once you delve into details, not to mention that the actual worldwide implementation is basically a coordination problem (all'd be better off if we did something against climate change but if a country unilaterally does something while the others do nothing the very country merely hurts its competitivity), but this is the starting point for a deeper analysis.

All this has nothing to do with this stupid 'left thinks markets are evil vs. right thinks government is evil' game, it is simply basic economics and thus inherently a technical and not a political issue. That's why you won't find a fundamental difference between conservative and progressive economists on the topic of climate change, all realize that it is basically an externality issue.
Of course economics and politics often overlap but gladly there are also some areas in which economics is purely technical.
Sadly these unambiguous lessons do not always transpire into political decision processes.